Talking Points Responding to Calls for More Police and Armed Personnel in Schools
Funneling money to more police and/or armed school staff is not the answer to preventing violence in schools. We need to invest in counselors, social workers, Restorative Justice Coordinators, Community Intervention Workers and other supportive school staff that actually create safer schools.
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It Won’t Solve the Problem: There is no evidence armed personnel will make schools safer during a school shooting
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Armed police were present at Virginia Tech, Columbine and Parkland.
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The majority of mass shootings end when the shooter decides to end them, not by intervention by law enforcement, according to a FBI study.
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It Causes Harm: Armed personnel pose a safety threat to students and other school staff
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Students are already facing violence from armed and unarmed law enforcement in their schools, including fatal and life-threatening injuries.
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Even trained police can miss their targets more than 4 out of 5 times in gun fire, according to an NYPD study.
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Students of color, especially Black students, face the greatest risks. School-based arrests rates and corporal punishment are much higher for Black and Latino students, and studies have shown that subjects are more likely to shoot Black individuals in split-second situations, and we already see the tragic consequences.
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It Creates More Problems: More police lead to more students being arrested for school discipline related incidents
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When police are in schools they tend to get involved in school discipline, escalating incidents that might have been resolved by a trip to the principal’s office into involvement in the criminal justice system.
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Having police in schools and punitive school cultures makes it less likely that students will trust adults in the building to come forward with concerns they may have about other students.
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We Need Real Safety: Preventing violence in schools requires both long-term and short-term solutions
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Social and emotional learning and Restorative Justice teach young people how to manage their emotions and respond to conflicts in healthy ways
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Counselors, wrap-around services and strong relationships with caring adults give struggling students support, and keep students who may need interventions from falling through the cracks.
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Having entrances and halls monitored by supportive school staff (like Community Intervention Workers and Peacebuilders) who know the student body well can preemptively address issues as them come up, intervene as conflicts arise, and quickly identify when something is wrong that requires an emergency response.
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School Resource Officers are police, not counselors or social workers. Students deserve trained mental health professionals, and telling students they can go to an SRO for counseling (when the SRO can report their conversations as part of a criminal investigation) is ineffective and can lead to negative consequences.
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Quick facts related to the Parkland Shooting that support our arguments:
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Four armed police were on site and did not prevent or end the shooting.
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The shooter interacted with law enforcement many times: he was the subject of tips to the FBI and had the police received calls about him at least 17 times--and they were unable to prevent the shooting. Law enforcement clearly cannot be the only tool we use to prevent these shootings.
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Broward County Superintendent said after the shooting that the mental health support in Broward is “not sufficient.”
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Resources: